Calorie Intake

by K Murphy
(United States)

I am wondering how many calories I need to eat to maintain a healthy weight.

For some reason I just do not trust the calculators online. I am 19 year old female and am NOT very active. My height is about 5ft 2in. I have struggled with an eating disorder therefore I am scared that I will eat too much.

It is hard for me to fathom that anything more than 1500 calories is healthy.I have been given mixed amounts by the calculators online. Also I am wondering how many calories I would need to gain weight at a safe pace.

Thanks for you help!

The online calculators are simply a starting point. If they return numbers that are too high for your comfort level, I'd suggest starting with the 1500 calories that you seem to feel comfortable with and slowly adding calories from there.

It takes adding an additional 3500 calories on top of however much you're eating to gain one pound. So if you add 100 calories/day to the amount you're currently eating, in 35 days you'll gain 1 pound. (100 calories x 35 days = 3500 calories = 1 pound).